From the Great Wall to Wall Street (eBook)

Born in China, raised in Hong Kong and educated in the US, Wei Yen has spent half his life and his career living and working in both the US and Asia. Wei has 23 years of financial industry experience, including as Managing Director for Moody’s Asia Pacific, where he ran its Asian Financial Institutions rating practices, and as Managing Director for Lehman Brothers Asia and Nomura International, where he advised Asian clients on rating and corporate finance. He was also a member of Lehman’s Asia Commitment Committee. Wei also held corporate positions as CFO for iSwitch Corp., a Mainland Chinese technology company, and as Group Treasurer for CITIC Pacific Limited, a Hong Kong listed subsidiary of the conglomerate CITIC Group.Before relocating to Asia in 1997 with Lehman Brothers, Wei was a biotech VC in New York for Rothschild Ventures, and corporate High-Yield analyst for Moody’s covering the technology and chemicals sectors. Earlier in his career, he was a research physicist and business manager for the American Cyanamid Company.Wei received his BS in physics from SUNY at Stony Brook, PhD in physics from the University of Maine and MBA in finance from Pace University. He lives in Southern California.     

From the Great Wall to Wall Street 3
Acknowledgements 5
Contents 7
About the Author 9
List of Figures 10
List of Tables 11
1: Introduction 12
2: Chinese Characteristics 17
The Rise of China 17
A Different Mindset 20
Chinese Characteristics 21
Chinese Soft Power 24
Mickey Mouse and Monkey King 26
Appreciate the Culture Slowly 28
Bibliography 31
3: Games People Play 33
Tai Chi: The Ultimate Soft Power 33
Yin and Yang in Motion 34
The Three Ps of Tai Chi 37
The Three Ps of Chinese Business 38
Yin and Yang Politics 41
Weiqi: Winning by Suffocation 44
The Art of War 46
Evasion vs. Head On 50
Bibliography 51
4: Geography of Management 53
Geography of Culture 53
In Whole or in Parts? 55
Crossing the River 58
Soup or Salad? 59
What Motivates Chinese Managers? 62
Two Different Approaches 66
The Chinese Relationship 70
All in a Name 72
The Chinese Dream 76
Similar but Different 77
Positive about Negatives 78
Chinese Efficiency 80
All in the Context 82
It All Depends! 88
Leader or Manager? 90
Issues and Personalities 91
Whose Responsibility Is It? 92
It’s Difficult to Be Silly! 94
Chinese Management Styles 96
The Confucian Manager 99
The Tao Manager 101
Bibliography 104
5: The Power of the Whole 107
The Lehman Flu 107
What Did China Do Right? 109
Bibliography 113
6: The Irrationality of Being Rational 114
Limits of Analysis 115
Ouch! The Market Freezes 116
In Quants We Trust 118
To Tao or Not to Tao, That Is the Question 122
Don’t Fight the Fed! 124
Bibliography 126
7: Union of Men and Heaven 127
Zhou Dynasty: Origins 130
Mandate of Heaven 131
Patriarchal Workplace 134
The Warring States and Chinese Philosophical Traditions 135
Confucianism 136
Bibliography 138
8: Contemporary Expressions of Tradition 140
Confucianism as the Official School of Thought 140
Pillars of Confucianism 141
A Western Corollary 141
Inner Sage and Outer King 142
No Way but the Middle Way 145
Ren Is for People 146
The Chinese Are Confusing! 150
The Other Kingdom 151
Yi Is for Justice 152
Li Is for Respect 155
Guanxi and the Art of Managing Upwards 157
The Ultimate Guanxi 160
Zhi Is for Wisdom 162
What Kind of Education? 162
All Can Be Taught or All Can Learn? 165
Bibliography 169
9: Etiquette with Chinese Characteristics 172
The Chinese No 176
A Coinish Way of Living 179
As a Matter of Face 181
Bibliography 185
10: The Chinese Model 186
The Practical Chinese 186
The Chinese Government Model 189
The US Government Model 191
The Family Model 194
Parents Know Best? 195
The Family Economic Unit 197
The SOE Family 198
Bibliography 200
11: Moral Hazard or Moral Imperative? 201
Is a Chinese Minsky Moment Coming? 201
Sunset for Suntech 203
Market Reform with Chinese Characteristics 205
Local Government Debt, Shadow Banking, Stock Market and … 212
Local Government Financing Vehicles: Long-Term Good for Value 212
Scared by the Shadows 216
The Shanghai Roller Coaster 218
Moral Hazard or Moral Imperative? 220
Bibliography 225
12: Exporting China Inc 227
When Going Out, Do What the Foreigners Do 230
Journey to the West 232
Haier: The Lower Sea 232
CAO: China after Oil 237
Bibliography 241
13: Cross-Cultural Lessons 244
Revisiting Traditional Values 244
Family Values 245
Perseverance 247
Tolerance and the Middle Way 248
In Books there Are Houses Made of Gold 249
Out-of-the-Box Thinkers 250
Alibaba: A Crocodile in the Yangtze 252
Sports and Business 254
Bibliography 257
14: Two Systems: One World 259
Bibliography 264
Index 265